On standby? A comparison of online and offline witnesses to bullying and their bystander behaviour

Abstract

Given their ubiquitous presence as witnesses to school-yard bullying, the role of the 'bystander' has been studied extensively. The prevalence and behaviour of bystanders to cyberbullying, however, is less understood. In an anonymous, school-based questionnaire, 716 secondary school students from South-East Queensland reported whether they had witnessed traditional and/or cyberbullying, and how they responded to each type. Overlap in bystander roles between online and offline environments was examined, as was their relationship to age and gender. Students who witnessed traditional bullying were more likely to have witnessed cyberbullying. Bystanders' behaviour was sometimes similar in both contexts of traditional and cyberbullying, mainly if they were outsiders but half of the 256 students who reported witnessing both traditional and cyberbullying, acted in different roles across the two environments. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of previous research on cyberbullying and traditional-bystanders. Future research should further explore the role of bystanders online, including examining whether known predictors of traditional-bystander behaviour similarly predict cyber-bystander behaviour.

Perpetrators, victims, bystanders and upstanders: cyberbullying in a special school context

“…The escalating cycle of impact is evident in the initial recording of a child on video leading to children perpetrating a collaborative on‐line assault against an individual with special needs and mental health problems. This resonates with Quirk and Campbell () and Lapidot‐Lefler and Barak () who describe how the unique characteristics of cyberspace can lead individuals to behave differently online. In this case study, the use of technology supported and enabled the incident and the absence of face‐to‐face contact depersonalised the interaction.…”

“…As such, technology can no longer be disentangled from young people's real world relationships in the classroom; rather, cyberspace becomes another arena in which students connect with their offline peers (Valkenburg and Peter, ; Mishna et al ., ; Quirk and Campbell, ). The ramifications of this, in and beyond the classroom, require analysis prior to the design and establishment of strategies for intervention and amelioration.…”

“…From this, the complexity of psychological and social aspects of cyberbullying has resulted in some recognition of the need for greater comparison of online and offline environments to enable a more precise critique of these variables (Mesch and Talmud, ). The ways in which the unique characteristics of cyberspace can lead individuals to behave differently online from how they would offline (Lapidot‐Lefler and Barak, ; Quirk and Campbell, ) is central to this study.…”

“…As young people increasingly associate online with people that they also know offline, the fluidity of these roles has received more attention in recent years (Festl et al ., ; Quirk and Campbell, ) with some acknowledgement that the norms negotiated in an offline setting often influence an individual's online behaviour (Seiler and Navarro, ; Jones et al ., ). Indeed, the role of social hierarchies in involuntary social groups, such as school classes, has been raised as an area of note (Festl et al ., ) in terms of the degree to which a cyberbullying event impacts upon pre‐existing social group dynamics and individual social identity.…”

“…The dynamics between the ecosystem of the school, the ethos of a classroom and online interactions between students are easily thrown out of balance; what might be seen as acceptance of cyberbullying – when such behaviours exist beyond the school remit – can result in an aggressive classroom climate (Quirk and Campbell, ) as offline and online social life blend together to constitute ‘normal’ social life for children growing up ‘connected’ (Seiler and Navarro, ). In addition, blurred boundaries between home, school and social life ‘presents further risks of exposure and reputational damage that seeps through from domain to domain, with resultant impact on emotional and physiological well‐being’ (Papatraianou et al ., : 278).…”